I think it came with a left-hand 5th lever, so the valve was pointed backward, as it the norm for such a setup. I am guessing that MW then sold the owner a retro-fitted 5th lever for the right thumb that ran behind the valve section to hook up with the original LH valve. When this work was done the factory-installed, backward-facing 5th had to be linked up to the 1st lever.Rick Denney wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:00 pmI just couldn't figure out why the first valve needed to be turned backwards.
As I said: wonky.
The 30 has four rotors and the crook width of 1st is "normal" but the 32 has five rotors and with 3rd slide set out front like that you can see the factory spacing for the slides — that gap between 3rd and 5th (now 1st) is the width of a 2nd slide. This setup might have been an attempt to open up how the 1st slide blew by using a wider crook. But then that leaves 5th with a 2nd crook, so I don't know what the builder was thinking.
None of this would have been an issue had old Gerhard designed the 5th to wrap more like how the 186 did it, but we won't go there, heh, heh…
